To implement an in-person and virtual Peer Support Group program for Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital (RBWH) Intensive Care Unit (ICU) survivors and their families, co-led by RBWH and Redcliffe ICUs, with referrals from the wider Metro North Community (Caboolture and The Prince Charles Hospitals) and incorporating Telehealth technology to reach regional consumers.

Metro North Health operates two quaternary* and two regular intensive care units (ICU) with a total of 68 ICU beds. Across the health service, ICUs admit over 5000 patients a year, in addition to a state-wide retrieval service conducted by RBWH and The Prince Charles Hospital. 

With improvements in critical care treatment leading to increasing survivorship, clinicians and researchers are beginning to understand the challenging recovery trajectory that patients and caregivers face following ICU. There has been a change in focus from surviving critical injuries and illness, to quality of survival post ICU.

Physical, cognitive, and psychological problems are common among survivors of critical illness and are often associated with a reduced quality of life.  This constellation of physical and psychosocial consequences of critical illness has been termed Post-Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS).

These issues are also seen in the caregivers of survivors (PICS-family). Although some in-ICU strategies to prevent PICS have been proposed, current strategies aimed at reducing PICS and PICS-Family do not eliminate the problem, warranting additional intervention to treat the condition.

The Post ICU Peer Support group program will help patients understand their experience, normalise it and give it context. It also sets realistic expectations for the different stages of their recovery. 

* Quaternary care refers to a level of highly specialised hospital equipment and expertise that is not available in every hospital. Some types of uncommon diagnostic or surgical procedures are considered quaternary care.

There will be scheduled face to face sessions, up to one hour in length, held once a month, at each facility with patients and families able to join virtually from regional centres using virtual platforms such as TEAMs, with an experienced ICU nurse and consumer leader present to facilitate discussion. Multi-disciplinary invited guests, such as pharmacists, physiotherapists and social workers will be present as requested, to answer questions about recovery and patient experiences.

This peer support group program will provide a community for the promotion of health and wellbeing, to ICU survivors and families suffering from Post Intensive Care Syndrome, facilitating an opportunity to normalise feelings and contextualise progress and recovery.

This will be a Metro North wide project (all ICUs) reaching regional centres, open to all past Adult ICU patients and families, with face-to-face meetings and virtual meetings, utilising existing infrastructure. ICU patients and families returning home Queensland wide will be invited to participate. Participation and length of participation will be self-determined by patients and families.